Lucifer, Satan, Father of Lies, Prince of
Darkness...the Devil goes by many names, and almost all of them sound like Scandinavian
heavy metal bands. In Christian religious writings, the Devil
is a fallen angel that rules over hell. So what does the Devil actually look like? And is it even possible to make a video about
Satan and Christianity without offending a whole bunch of people? Well, we sent our world-class team of researchers
through a portal to hell to find out. [Said as an aside:] We expect them back any
day now. Most Christians today have an image of the
Devil as a red, horned creature. But what does the Bible actually say about
the fallen angel that became Satan? Well, surprisingly, not a whole lot. In fact, the Bible alludes to the fact that
the Devil doesn’t have a specific physical form at all. In essence, the Bible describes the Devil
as a spirit being with no physical form. When the book refers to angels - of which
the Devil is a fallen one - it refers to them as spirits. Furthermore, since Satan is depicted as a
master of deception and manipulation, he, she, or them - we will use the traditional
historical “he” for the purposes of this video - can apparently take many forms. And what better disguise is there for manipulation
purposes than appearing as a beautiful angelic being? In 2 Corinthians 11:14, the passage reads
“and no marvel; for even Satan fashions himself into an angel of light.” Many Christians believe that the first time
the Devil appears in the Bible is early on, in Genesis 3. According to your one aunt who disapproves
of you living with your girlfriend, the serpent that tricks Adam and Eve into falling from
grace is the Devil, or at least possessed by the Devil. This is taken from a line in Revelation 20:2
that says, “he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound
him for a thousand years.” This unfortunate reference would go on to
give a bad reputation to snakes everywhere. Well...the poison doesn’t help either. Nor does the movie “Anaconda”. However, some modern scholars dispute that
the Devil took the shape of a snake. Or, again, even that the Devil was that important
in the Bible at all. Henry Ansgar Kelly, a UCLA professor who published
“Satan: A Biography”, believes our current interpretation and image of Satan is all wrong. According to Kelly, not only is Satan not
nearly as important or ubiquitous in the Bible as most Christians currently believe, but
he’s also not such a uniformly evil character, and certainly not the antithesis of God. In the 45 books that make up the pre-Christian
scriptures, Kelly only counts three direct references to Satan. That’s about as often as you’d mention
the weird barista at your local coffee shop in a biography of your life. Furthermore, in these books, Satan’s job
“is to test people’s virtue and to report their failures”, according to Kelly. Even when the word Lucifer appears in the
bible, Kelly explains that Lucifer was latin for “light-bearer”, and is unlikely to
be a reference to Satan. Rather, it’s the name the book gives to
various other entities, such as Venus and the morning star. So any description of Lucifer can’t be used
as an accurate assessment of the Devil’s appearance. Going back to Adam and Eve, Kelly believes
the Revelations passage that casts Satan as a serpent is mistranslated and misunderstood. “Nobody in the Old Testament - or, for that
matter, in the New Testament either - ever identifies the serpent of Eden with Satan.” Christian philosophers of the second and third
centuries were the ones who originally attributed all these references to Satan, as they considered
him a figure of great importance. If all that is true, then where did our ugly,
horned, horrifying vision of the Devil come from? Turns out, a lot of it was due to one pissed
off Italian literary genius named Dante Alighieri. Dante, as those who were at least partially
awake in World Literature classes know, wrote “The Divine Comedy” between 1308 and 1320. The narrative poem, now considered one of
the best works of literature in history, was divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio,
Paradiso. Because a lot of Italian really is just about
adding O’s to English words, these mean, as you may have guessed: hell, purgatory,
and paradise. Therefore, the book included a lot of descriptions
of the Devil. In Dante’s “Inferno”, the Devil is grotesque. He is a giant, winged demon, frozen in ice
up to his chest, trapped in the center of hell. In Dante’s disturbing vision, Satan has
three heads, each with a pair of bat wings under each chin. To top it all off, his three mouths are always
chewing on the following historical figures: Judas Iscariot, Marcus Junius Brutus, and
Gaius Cassius Longinus. Judas was, of course, the disciple that betrayed
Jesus, Marcus Junius Brutus was of “et tu, Brutus?” Caesar-killing fame, and Cassius was the guy
that started the Caesar-killing plot along with him. As gross as this vision of the Devil sounds,
Dante’s version of the Father of Lies was a little more pathetic than in other descriptions. Dante envisions Satan as a slobbering, wordless
demon subject to the same terrifying punishments of hell he is doling out. Furthermore, Dante emphasizes that Satan once
used to be beautiful until he rebelled against God. A line from the poem states, “Were he as
fair once, as he now is foul”. Another medieval book, the Codex Gigas, also
has very detailed images of the Devil. Codex Gigas, which means “Giant Book”,
is also nicknamed “The Devil’s Bible”. Given that the tome weighs a staggering 165
pounds, we actually think that “Giant Book” is the more accurate of the two names. We have also never been so grateful for Kindles. Throughout the several, several, hundred pages
of the book, the devil is depicted with a greenish face bearing red horns, eyes, and
claws. This comes closer to our modern image of the
Devil. But according to some scholars, it turns out
Christianity also borrowed bits and pieces from other religions and belief systems to
fill in the Bible’s blanks. Bernard Barryte has curated an exhibit titled
“Sympathy for the Devil” at Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center, which somehow escaped
the notice of Mick Jagger’s legal team. Barryte says, “bits and pieces from lots
of now-defunct religions got synthesized: the cloven feet from Pan, the horns from the
gods of various cults in the near east.” This image was highly popular in the 15th
and 16th centuries, which depicted the Devil as the sworn enemy of Christianity and of
all mankind. A horned, furry beast, barely human in appearance. As we dive further in, the research shows
that the image of the Devil, besides being influenced by important literary and artistic
works of each era, changed along with the interpretation of what the Devil symbolized. For example, John Milton’s work “Paradise
Lost” drew Satan as a sad figure deserving of pity. This depiction, combined with the effects
of the French and American Revolution, led to images of the Devil as a more human character. As Barryte says, “people interpreted the
figure less as a demonic creature and more as a heroic rebel against the oppression of
the paternal god.” At this point in time, many Christians wanted
to remove the superstitious elements of their religion altogether, considering them a bit
backwards. Therefore, this new more human look for the
Devil suited them just fine. By the 19th century, Goethe’s “Faust”
leaned into the image of the Devil as a sly, cunning manipulator. At this point, the image of Satan switches
to a more weasley-looking trickster. Many bronze statues of this era depict him
as a thin, drawn, frequently hunched over man with pointed features One thing many depictions share in common
is the color red. That’s usually a theme for images of Satan,
which makes sense as he rules over a place where fire is eternally burning and people
are bleeding from being tortured. Some Christians believe that the Devil still
occasionally walks the Earth, presenting himself in the form of demonic possessions. Popular shows and cartoons show him carrying
a trident and wearing a red cape. A few last-minute, ahem, “sexy” Halloween
costumes depict him in a red bodysuit and horns, wearing nothing much else at all, and
prone to being fined for public intoxication. Nowadays, many works of art depict the Devil
as embodied by a person, or institution, right here on Earth. The Devil has been depicted as a tailor sewing
Nazi uniforms in Jerome Witkin’s “The Devil as Tailor”, or even as a red-clad
papal figure next to a bloody woman in “Heaven and Hell”. We will not be showing that second image in
this video, and trust us, your brain cells will thank us for that. In fact, as corruption and sex scandals came
to light regarding the Catholic Church, it became common to depict the Devil as existing
within the church itself, or at least its important figureheads. Whether drawn by religious Christians or non-religious
artists, as society moves more towards addressing issues and injustices right here on Earth,
the concept of the Devil appears more and more in human form. Brutal dictators, genocidal psychopaths, and
serial predators are all seen as evil to the point of non-comprehension. Aka…”they have the Devil inside them.” However, the concept of an evil spirit, religious
or otherwise, is hardly unique to Christianity. Most cultures and religions around the globe
have a being similar to “the Devil”, and each has its unique take on what this spirit
may look like. Islamic mythology speaks of a demonic creature
below the level of angels and devils called the Jinn, a spirit that can take human or
animal form. They live in inanimate objects and are responsible
for mental illnesses, destruction, accidents, and other maladies. In English we know them as...genies. Clearly, Disney sanitized this creature a
bit for its movies. In many Caribbean countries, their folklore
speaks of evil spirits known as Jumbees. These Jumbees come in all different shapes
and sizes, and carry different intentions as well. In Guyana, native people speak of the Massacooramanis,
a large, excessively hairy man-like creature that boasts a sharp set of teeth protruding
from its mouth. He always lives in rivers, where he drags
boats into the water and feasts on the men inside. The Moongazer, on the other hand, comes out
only during the full moon. He looks like an extremely tall, slim, muscular
man who straddles a road and stares at the moon. Anyone who tries to pass the road underneath
him instantly gets crushed to death. And really, if you see a naked 8-foot tall
creature straddling a road and try to pass it anyway, your death might be a little bit
on you. The most terrifying spirit of all is the Dutchman
Jumbee. It unfortunately makes sense that indigenous
and Black Caribbeans would name the most horrifying demon after the colonizers that enslaved and
slaughtered them. These Jumbees are said to be the spirits of
Dutchmen who killed and buried slaves. They reside in Dutchman trees, and if anyone
climbs these trees, the Dutchman will make them horribly ill, break their bones, or even
kill them. Some of the strangest looking devils in the
world might be the Baku of Japan. According to Japanese legends, the gods created
the Baku with all the leftover parts they had after completing the rest of the animal
kingdom. In one manuscript, the Baku is said to have
an elephant’s trunk, rhinoceros’ eyes, an ox’s tail, and a tiger’s paws. Other illustrations show it with an elephant’s
head and tusks, claws, a hairy body, and horns. The Baku isn’t necessarily all bad. Children in Japan would call on the Baku to
come eat their nightmares. However, the legends warned that people who
called on the Baku too often would make the creature too hungry, and it would end up eating
their dreams, hopes, and desires, leaving their life empty and miserable. So the next time you dream that you are naked
in class and forgot to study for the past four years of school while your crush points
and laughs at you...maybe just deal with it on your own. The Devil has taken many shapes throughout
both Christian history, and in whatever analogous demonic form he takes in cultures around the
world. Frequently, the Devil changes appearance depending
on beliefs of the time, holding a mirror to what role religion is playing in society during
each era rather than having one fixed appearance. Now that you hopefully have a good grasp on
how to identify the Devil and various other demons, as well as several images to fill
your nightmares tonight - remember, don’t call on the Baku unless you really need it
- check out some of our other stories and legends on The Infographics Show!
